


Roses Are Red

by wakeupstiles



Series: Firefighter Raven, Paramedic Octavia [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefighters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/F, Firefighter Raven, Firefighters, Major character death - Freeform, Non Happy Ending, Paramedic Octavia, Tragedy, enjoy, paramedics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6374551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakeupstiles/pseuds/wakeupstiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she saw them she knew; Murphy a crying and angry mess. Clarke's loss of composure and face wet from tears, red eyes and dripping nose. The red bouquet of roses and plate of food fell from Octavia's hands. Her knees buckled underneath her, she fell to the tile floor in a fit of hysterical sobs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses Are Red

**Author's Note:**

> damn alex, back at it again with the tragedy

_Get up, Reyes!_

She could hear her Chief shouting at her, demanding that she stand and walk out of that basement, or at least crawl back towards the stairs. But she was too tired and even if she moved a little she felt like she was falling apart.

_Get up! Get up!_

She tried. Oh god, she tried.

_I trained you better than that!_

“I’m sorry, Chief.” She muttered, the smoke pooling into her lungs. She tried holding her breath, but every time her lungs were assaulted with uncontrollable coughing. She couldn’t find her gas mask. She couldn’t reach for her radio. She couldn’t call out for her team. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe.

_Raven, get up. You have to get up._

That wasn’t Anya; that was Octavia. Sweet, bold Octavia; she was going to be so disappointed in her when she found out what had happened. _Be careful. See you soon._ They always said before a call. They were careful. They did see each other soon. But not this time.

_Get up. Why can’t you get up?_

She was pretty sure her leg was broken. Probably even her ribs. Maybe her back but she couldn’t tell because she couldn’t feel a goddamn thing; falling through a floor and landing on concrete wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. Her team would find her soon, she knew. It was a large building, but Murphy was a few doors behind her, so they would find her. Whether she would be alive or not wasn’t really a question that she could answer.

_It’s okay._

Anya’s voice came to her again, only this time it was soft and understanding. Raven smiled as smoke continued to pour into her body and coil inside it, strangling her from the inside.

_You’ll be okay._

Octavia whispered, kissed her on the forehead. Raven nodded, closed her eyes, embraced the darkness waiting for her.

 

* * *

 

 

She rolled in and out of consciousness through the ride to the hospital. She didn’t recognize the EMT’s treating her, though that couldn’t be held against her because her vision was foggy so she could barely see a damn thing anway. Maybe she was going blind. She figured if she survived all the burns that blindness wouldn’t be that bad.

_“You’re going to be okay.”_ A distant voice assured, then a needle got stuck in her arm and a mask was shoved over her nose and mouth.

Raven wanted to laugh. Wanted to scream that no, she wouldn’t be okay. That these wounds would never heal and she wouldn’t be okay.

But she just passed out instead.

 

* * *

 

 

_“Thirty-one year old female…”_

She slipped in and out again as the paramedics wheeled her through the emergency doors.

_“Firefighter fell down…”_

_Fell through the floor. Landed on the concrete basement. Broke a lot of bones and looked like a fucking fool._ She thought bitterly.

_“Oh my god! Raven—“_ That voice. She knew that voice. Low but high. Soft yet rough. Feminine and strong. _“We’re going to take care of you. I’m going to take care of you.”_ She whispered in her ear, then shouted something at the other doctors that Raven couldn’t quite make out.

_Clarke… That’s Clarke…_ She though, her consciousness becoming more and more gray by each passing second. She opened her mouth through the mask, tried to speak, but her throat was raw, dry, and burning. She couldn’t get a damn word out, none the less a pitiful whine of pain.

_“You’re gonna be okay.”_ Clarke said again, then Raven let her mind go completely dark.

 

* * *

 

The first thing she noticed when she woke up was that her whole body was inflamed. The second thing she noticed was that her vision was still blurry, like she was wearing extremely smudged glasses. She was confused for all of five seconds before she remembered what happened: the building fire, falling through the floor, landing in the basement, not being able to get out.

_Some fucking firefighter you are._

“You fucked up, Reyes.” She grumbled to herself, her voice barely audible. Her throat felt like sand paper, her tongue felt like the desert. She wanted to sob from all the pain she was in but her tears were all dried up.

“Well, good afternoon.” Raven looked towards the front of the room to see Clarke coming in with a broad smile on her face and a clipboard against her chest.

“Hey,” The woman said through a dry cough.

Clarke came to the side of her bed and picked up a cup, holding the straw to her cracked lips. “Here, drink.” And she did, greedily. The ice water helped just enough so that her mouth wasn’t throbbing anymore, but her body continued to pulse with pain. “I’ll get more morphine.” Clarke mumbled, reading the agony on Raven’s face. The woman nodded graciously.

Once the medicine began kicking in, Raven asked, “So, Doc, what’s the damage?”

The blonde sat down beside Raven, looked at her with sympathy. If Raven was in her right mind and not currently getting high off drugs, she would have smacked that look right off her friends face. If there was one thing she hated it was people feeling sorry and pity for her. Raven rolled her eyes, which hurt more than it should have, and muttered, “Just tell me.” She demanded, her voice going in and out.

Clarke cleared her throat, explained, “You have severe third degree burns on over seventy-five percent of your body. Three of your ribs are broken. Your left knee was shattered. Your lungs are still partially full of smoke.”

“And my eyes?”

“Exposed to the smoke but the blurriness will wear off.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, coughed a little. “And if it doesn’t?”

Clarke lightly took her friends hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It will.”

The women got silent after that, neither of them wanting to voice what they were thinking: even if she got her vision back it wouldn’t matter if the burns killed her. Who could survive with seventy-five percent of their skin severely burned? Raven had heard of it before, but that was one case; usually the person dies within a week due to the severity and pain.

 

* * *

 

Her vision was pretty much clear when her girlfriend rushed into the room two hours later. The brunette went straight to the bed and carefully laid herself on Raven, kissing her aching face and running her hands through her dirty hair. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up.” She cried, kissing the corners of her mouth.

Raven smiled against her lips. “It’s okay.” Octavia was at some big event at the children’s hospital. She doubted anyone was able to get in touch with her for a while.

“How do you feel?” She asked, her blue eyes shining with an abundance of tears.

She gave a little smile, wiped her girlfriend’s tears with her awkwardly wrapped hands. “Fine now that Clarke got me high.” Octavia gave a little laugh, hugged her again.

“I couldn’t… I never heard my phone go off and I… Murphy came to get me and…” She tried to get the words out but every time she spoke her voice cracked and choked and she couldn’t speak coherently.

“Hey,” Raven haphazardly grabbed Octavia’s face in her hands, pressed their foreheads together. “I’m okay. I swear I’m okay.” She kissed her forehead, eyes, nose, cheeks, lips with every word, over and over, assuring her again and again that she was fine, that everything was fine, that they would be okay.

She didn’t know if she kept chanting it for herself or Octavia more.

 

* * *

 

Octavia left an hour after that to go down to the cafeteria to get some food and _for the love of god, get me a cheese burger, I can’t take this dishwater soup._ The woman just smiled and shook her head at her girlfriend, waved to her as she left, blew her a kiss, promised to be back soon.

“Wow, you look like shit.” Raven looked up to see Murphy entering the room, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes darting everywhere except to her.

Raven smirked. “You look beautiful, too.” He sat down in the leather chair beside her, pulled it closer, gingerly grabbed her hand.

“Can you feel anything?” He finally asked after several seconds of silence. His eyes finally met hers, tears brimming the edges.

“Please don’t cry.” She whispered, lightly nudged his shoulder with her wrapped hand. “I feel everything.” She admitted with a sigh, her chest suddenly feeling tight.

“You just had to go and get yourself in trouble, huh?” He asked lightheartedly.

She smiled painfully, her chest beginning to cave in and her breathing becoming ragged. “You know me.” She managed to get out before she lost consciousness and the machine hooked to her heart flat lined.

Murphy’s eyes grew wide. He jumped to his feet and gave her shoulder a shake. He said her name several times, shaking her harder and harder to try to snap her out of hit. “Move.” Clarke ordered, rushing past him and checking her pulse.

“Help her. Clarke, you have to help her!” The man shouted, pulling at his hair and biting his lip.

“Where are those paddles?” Clarke shouted, opening the front of Raven’s gown and putting pads on her chest.

“Paddles.” Echo rushed into the room with a cart, handed the pre-jelled paddles to the doctor.

“Three, two, one, clear!” Clarke pressed them to Raven’s chest, sent a jolt of electricity through the woman’s body. She checked her pulse, shook her head and cussed under her breath. “Again. Clear!”

_Clear!_

_Clear!_

_Clear!_

And then she stopped and the room fell eerily silent. Only the constant beeping of the machine that Raven was hooked to provided sound. Murphy was backed against the wall, his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide with fear and bewilderment.

Clarke let the paddles fall to the floor, freely let tears fall as she looked up at the wall across from her to the clock. “Time of death, 0243.” She swiped her arm across her eyes, gritted her teeth together. “Fuck!” She wailed, veering back and punching the beeping machine. The sound died slowly.

“You can’t just give up.” Murphy’s voice croaked as he finally spoke from the other side of the room. “There’s more—there’s more you can do. You can’t give up on her!” He yelped, rushing over to Raven’s side, hands hovering above her, frozen in place when he saw that her eyes were still open, though instead of being full of life and love and sarcasm and jokes they were empty. Completely, utterly void of anything that made Raven…Raven.

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, tried to control her breathing. “Murphy, there’s nothing more we can do.” She whispered, reaching down and closing her best friend’s eyes. The blonde took a deep, steady breath, looked up at the man, muttered sadly, “She’s…she’s gone.” The words were like acid in her mouth, poison on her tongue. She never thought she’d have to say them—Raven was…not immortal but she was damn near invincible.

At least, that’s what the world thought.

Murphy looked from Clarke to Raven, mind racing and heart pounding. It wasn’t fair. “Goddamn it!” He kicked the wall, knocked over an empty tray as he stormed out of the room. Clarke followed him into the hallway, where Octavia was standing several feet in front of them, froze in place, staring at her two friends with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

She knew.

When she saw them _she knew._

Murphy a crying and angry mess. Clarke’s loss of composure, face wet from tears, red eyes and dripping nose.

“No,” Octavia whispered, head rolling to the side. “No, no, no.” The red bouquet of roses and plate of food fell from her hands, crashing on the tiled floor and scattering into a disastrous mess. She took several steps forward but collapsed as her knees buckled beneath her. She fell to the ground in a fit of hysterical sobs.

Clarke was beside her in seconds, arms wrapped around her shoulders and rocking her from side to side as if it would provide some sort of comfort. Murphy stayed here he was, crying to himself as he looked back into the room where his dead friend lay. Echo came out of the room, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, and watched on as the two women sobbed on the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> this definitely didn't turn out as sad as i wanted it to...but...it's still pretty sad i guess.


End file.
